No. 65, Original In the Supreme Court of the United States STATE OF TEXAS, PLAINTIFF v. STATE OF NEW MEXICO ON REVIEW OF THE RIVER MASTER’S 2018 FINAL DETERMINATION MOTION FOR REVIEW OF RIVER MASTER’S FINAL DETERMINATION KEN PAXTON KYLE D. HAWKINS Attorney General of Texas Solicitor General Counsel of Record JEFFREY C. MATEER First Assistant Attorney HEATHER GEBELIN HACKER General Assistant Solicitor General OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL P.O. Box 12548 (MC 059) Austin, Texas 78711-2548
[email protected] (512) 936-1700 QUESTIONS PRESENTED To resolve disputes about use of the Pecos River, Texas and New Mexico entered into the Pecos River Compact. This Court subsequently entered an amended decree ordering New Mexico to comply with its Com- pact obligations and appointing a River Master to per- form the annual calculations of New Mexico’s water- delivery obligations. The Court’s decree specifies exact procedures for objecting to the River Master’s annual reports. In par- ticular, a party must seek this Court’s review of any fi- nal determination of the River Master within 30 days. Likewise, the decree allows modifying the manual gov- erning the River Master’s calculations only by specified procedures. In 2014 and 2015, a federally owned reservoir in New Mexico impounded and held large amounts of flood waters dumped in the Pecos Basin by heavy rains. When the reservoir’s authority to hold the water for flood-control purposes expired, the reservoir began to release it. Texas did not use this water, nor could it. The downstream reservoir in Texas was already full from holding flood water, so Texas had to release water, wasted, to make room for the water flowing in from New Mexico.